


Snake Eyes

by TaleasOldasTimeandSpace



Series: Yet Another Gratuitously Fluffy Darcyland Soulmate AU [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Balrog the Bilgesnipe, Darcyland, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, SCIENCE!, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, WinterShock - Freeform, fear mad scientists with access to wormholes, friendly reptiles, it's just the author's attempt to be clever, not really - Freeform, sorta - Freeform, the title has nothing to do with gambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8988148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace/pseuds/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace
Summary: Darcy is an expert wrangler.  Scientists, Avengers, reptiles...  A soulmate who can wrestle all of the above is the perfect accessory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for [ShadowSpark](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpark/pseuds/ShadowSpark), who wanted Darcy/Bucky, something to do with friendly reptiles (no giant lizards/snakes attacking please).  
> Thanks for the prompt!

Normally, Darcy loved having an occasionally Science!-crazed astrophysicist for a best friend.  Normally, she thrived in the hectic atmosphere that was life in the Avengers’ Tower.  Normally, she rolled with whatever weirdness was thrown her way with a pithy quip and a hand on her taser.

Normally, the lab wasn’t swarming with inmates of the Bronx Zoo World of Reptiles.

‘Not that I’m nagging or anything, but anytime you want to close the wormhole would be fine with me!’ she yelled as she chased an assortment of geckoes around the room, attempting to stuff them in a box before they could escape to the rest of the tower.

‘Working on it!’  Jane was practically curled up inside the offending machinery, making her voice echo oddly.

‘It’d be swell if you could maybe close it _before_ it gets to the poisonous reptiles,’ Darcy added as she scooped up the last gecko and turned her attention to a boa that was throwing its body against the door in a bid for freedom.  Fortunately, JARVIS knew better than to allow them to stage an all-reptile reenactment of The Great Escape.  ‘C’mere, McQueen,’ she muttered as she hefted the boa and glared around the lab for a place to put it.

‘I _said_ I’m working on it!’  Jane tended to get a little tetchy when she felt people were rushing her.

Darcy draped McQueen around Balrog’s antlers like yarn on a yarn swift.  The bilgesnipe shot her a glower, flicking an ear as McQueen nudged it inquisitively.  She patted his snout.  ‘Guard the door, ’kay, pal?’  He heaved a longsuffering sigh and stalked over to the doors.  ‘I know it’s not a convergence or a dark elf invasion or anything flashy like that,’ she continued, ‘but I’d prefer not to be lab partners with an iguana if it’s all the same to you.  No offence, Smaug,’ she added, glancing up at the red iguana that watching her disapprovingly as he hung upside-down from the light fixture.

Jane poked her head out of the disreputable equipment, her face smeared with grease and her eyes wild.  ‘If you don’t knock it off, I swear I will shove you through before I close it!’

Darcy held up her hands.  ‘Okay, okay!  Yeesh!’  Frowning, she surveyed the lab.  ‘Have you seen Maleficent?’

‘Daaarcy,’ Jane whined, banging her head on the Stargate knockoff.  ‘You don’t need to name them.  You just need to catch them so we can send them home.  If you name them, you’ll get attached to them, and then you’ll want to keep—EEK!’  Her lecture was cut off with a strangled yelp as a komodo dragon poked her head into the workspace.

‘Oh, hey!  You found her!’

Jane glared at Darcy.  ‘I hate you,’ she said darky.

Darcy stuck her tongue out.  ‘Love you, too.  Now get back to work!’

Jane rolled her eyes and retreated back into the portal generator, muttering under her breath in Asgardian while taking out her aggressions on the hapless machinery.  Darcy paused in her attempts to remove Maleficent, listening to Jane’s tirade with a smirk.  Somehow, she doubted Jane had picked up her vocabulary from Thor.

‘Say, Janey?’

 _‘What?’_ Jane barked.

‘D’you think maybe it’s time to call in reinforcements?’ Darcy asked innocently, stroking Maleficent on the head.  The dragon’s eyes slide shut, and if she’d been a cat, she would’ve started purring.

Balrog, who _could_ purr, after a fashion, growled from his post by the door.

Jane pulled her head slowly from the equipment and gave Darcy a dead-eyed glare that was scarier than meeting the eyes of the rattlesnake Darcy was _supremely_ grateful hadn’t come through the wormhole.  Yet.

‘No,’ she said flatly, and went back to hitting things.

‘But Janey—’

 _‘No._ ’

_‘Jane.’_

_‘Darcy.’_

‘He opens portals and wormholes all the time!  He could help!’

‘Not with this kind of equipment!  He does it by waving his hands in the air like Jack Sparrow!’

Darcy shook her head.  ‘What happened to “magic is science we don’t understand”?’  She poked Jane in the arm.  ‘You’re just mad because he won’t let you dissect his sling ring.’

Jane poked her with a screwdriver.  ‘And _you’re_ just suggesting it because you and Balrog have a weird crush on his cape.’

‘Hey, that cape is cool!’

‘Whatever.  I’d be done already if you didn’t keep distracting me!  Now catch some lizards and let me work in peace, minion!’

With all the commotion, Darcy didn’t hear the lab door open.  So she didn’t realize they had company of the warm-blooded persuasion until a pleasantly deep voice remarked, _‘Is Stark opening a petting zoo, now?’_

She turned, ready to give him a piece of her mind for making her go through life with Tony Stark’s name on her calf—Tony had cackled hysterically for three minutes straight when he found out—but before she could even get a good look at him, she registered where he was walking and shrieked, _‘Don’t step on Bilbo!’_

Her soulmate froze, foot hovering inches from the chameleon that was trying to blend in with the floor.  Darcy dropped her hold on Maleficent and dove across the floor, scooping Bilbo up as she slid past before plowing gracelessly into Balrog.  The bilgesnipe dug his claws into the polished concrete to keep from toppling over, McQueen swaying dangerously in his antlers.

When the world stopped moving, she cracked a cautious eye opened to find her soulmate bending over her, a look of concerned amusement on his face.  Said face was unfairly cute, considering it was somewhat scruffy and completely upside down.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘M’fine.  You have beautiful eyes,’ she informed him.  Huh.  Maybe she’d hit her head.  McQueen leaned down and flicked her nose with his tongue, and she shoved his head away without breaking eye contact.

Pretty Eyes' face broke into a lopsided grin.  ‘Thanks, doll.  You’re pretty gorgeous, yourself.  Need a hand?’

She considered the hand he held out to her.  It was a nice hand, large and calloused.  ‘Yes.  Yes, I do,’ she said, putting her hand in his.  He effortlessly pulled her to her feet, and she braced herself on his (broad, muscular, rather yummy) chest.  His face was even cuter right side up.  ‘Hi,’ she said, slightly breathless.  Because of her heroic chameleon-rescuing efforts, of course.

‘Hi,’ he replied, eyes crinkling.

‘Hello, yes, still here.  Apparently I’m the only one actually doing her job, or at least, I would be if this stupid lizard would quit getting in the way.  Could you maybe save the googly eyes until after the wormhole’s closed?’  Jane’s sarcastic query was enough to make them jump apart guiltily, though Tall, Dark, and Dreamy managed to keep ahold of Darcy’s hand.

Darcy shot him a conspiratorial eyeroll, making him laugh.  He had a nice laugh, too.  ‘Might I remind you that it’s your fault we’re in this predicament to begin with, boss lady?’

Jane pointed a threatening screwdriver at her.  ‘Silence, minion!  Unless you have useful suggestions, Science!gremlins should be seen and not heard.’

Darcy snickered.  ‘Janey, you hired the wrong gremlin.’

Her soulmate was studying the generator with a cocked head.  ‘Have you tried reversing the polarity?’

Darcy and Jane stared at him.

He hunched his shoulders.  ‘It’s just a suggest—’

‘That might actually work!’  Jane dove back into the guts of her machinery.

He looked back to Darcy, who was still staring at him.  ‘What?’

‘Marry me.’

He blinked, then shrugged.  ‘Okay.’

‘Darcy!’ Jane bellowed.  She had impressive lungs for one so tiny.  ‘I forbid you to get married until after the lab is cleared of lizards and the wormhole is closed!  Now get back to work, young lady!’

‘Yes, Mom.  Balrog, can you send McQueen back through the gate?’  Balrog shot her a look that said _What do you take me for?_ before trotting over to the wormhole and sticking his head through.  McQueen reluctantly slithered back into his enclosure.  His job as coatrack for a snake done, Balrog ambled out of the lab, probably to take a nap on the cape that he’d nicked from Thor and hidden in a corner of Tony’s lab.

‘And would you mind grabbing Maleficent?’ Darcy asked her soulmate, pointing to the komodo dragon as she grabbed the box of geckos.

‘Sure, doll.’  He stalked over to Maleficent and grabbed her in a proper Crocodile Hunter hold, carting the wriggling dragon over to the shrinking portal.  Darcy plopped Bilbo in with the geckos and sent the box through, then turned her attention to the remaining member of the prison break.  Smaug hadn’t moved from the light fixture.  Darcy hopped up and took a swipe at him, but he just watched her smugly from the safety of his perch.

She turned to ask her soulmate for a boost, but he grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her in the air before she could open her mouth.  Psychic?  Probably not, though you never could tell around here.  She took advantage of her dramatically increased height to snag the iguana before he could escape to rain fire and destruction on Esgaroth.

Her soulmate—she really needed to find out his name—lowered her slowly to the floor.  Instead of letting her go, he wrapped his arms around her and leaned his chin on her shoulder.  She twisted to grin at him.  ‘Thanks for the assist, handsome.’

‘My pleasure, doll.’

‘For the love of Burnell and Tarter, quit canoodling and ditch the lizard!’  Jane didn’t have a whole lot of patience on a good day, and what little she had had been worn through by the reptiles running riot through her lab.

Darcy sighed.  ‘That’s her “I’m approximately 10.5 seconds away from homicide” voice, so we’d better do what she says or face the consequences,’ she said, patting her soulmate’s hands where they were clasped around her middle before reluctantly disengaging from his hold.

He shot a glance at Jane.  ‘Pretty sure I could take her,’ he deadpanned.

Darcy straightened from dumping Smaug through the portal, blinking at him as she belatedly registered the fact that one of his hands—his whole arm, now that she thought of it—was made of metal.  Ooooooh.  That explained a lot.  Smirking, she walked back to him and took his hands in hers as the wormhole _finally_ closed behind her.  ‘Perhaps, soldier,’ she said, lifting a shoulder.  He winced almost imperceptibly at the moniker, and she tightened her hands around his.  _Yes, I know who you are, and I don’t care._   ‘Physically, anyway.  But don’t disregard the power of a woman who can open wormholes at will.’

He nodded, visibly relaxing when he realized that she wasn’t going to run away screaming.  ‘Fair point.’

‘Naturally.’

‘And don’t you forget it!’ Jane interjected, pointing two fingers from her eyes to Bucky.  ‘I’m watching you, mister.’

Darcy rolled her eyes.  ‘Zip it, boss lady.  Now.’  She tugged Bucky out of the lab.  ‘Me Darcy.  You Bucky.  Whaddya say we blow this joint?  You can buy me a coffee.’

‘Will there be canoodling?’

She tapped her chin thoughtfully.  ‘There’s a statistic probability of that, yes.’

He grinned, wide and boyish and absolutely adorable.  ‘Then lead the way, doll!’

**Author's Note:**

> Darcy and Bucky visit the World of Reptiles occasionally, just to check in with the inmates. Balrog comes along sometimes, mostly to gloat about the fact that he is free and they are not.
> 
> Tony has tried everything to bilgesnipe-proof his lab, without success. He suspects foul play. 
> 
> He would be correct.
> 
> Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars, and Jill Tarter worked with SETI. I feel like Jane's the type to swear by scientists, especially female ones. Tarter was for Jane, and Burnell was for me (Northern Irish ftw!)
> 
> As always, you can leave a prompt in the comments below, or [shoot the breeze](https://taleasoldastime-andspace.tumblr.com/ask) on my tumblr. No smut, slash, or polyships, please and thank you!
> 
> I've got a Shieldshock secret santa fic I'll be posting tomorrow, but I probably wont get another Soulmate or Darcy/Balrog adventure posted before Christmas. So that being the case...
> 
> Merry Christmas, my little bilgesnipes!


End file.
